Sterling High School FFA does well at National Convention

Emma Scholz takes first place in agriscience fair competition

Pictured are the Sterling High School FFA members who competed at the National Convention last month. From left; Alyssa Bell and Miranda Ewbank, who along with Shannon Stewart (not pictured), received the bronze award in ag communications; Emma Scholz and Matt Brower, who took first and ninth place in the agriscience fair compeition; and Morgan Quint, Kelsey Bornhoft and Kymbre Mitchell, who along with Sky McEndaffer (not pictured), received a silver award in horse judging. (Callie Jones/Journal-Advocate)

STERLING -- Sterling High School is celebrating a successful National FFA Convention in Indianapolis Oct. 24-26, where students took home several awards, including a national championship.

"I'm extremely proud of them," said FFA adviser Jonathan Spreng. "It's a tremendous thing taking three teams to nationals. It's more tremendous to have a national champion and for them do as well as they did. You can look for great things to come out of these kids."

Emma Scholz, a sophomore, took first place in the agriscience fair competition, for her project on "the effects of genetically modified corn on Escherichia coli's resistance to tetracycline." She researched to see if different types of corn would make E. coli.

Even two weeks later it's hard for her to believe she is a national champion.

"I'm still in denial," Scholz said. "This is an organization with half a million people in it. To know that I was one of a handful of people that came away with a national championship is hard to believe."

Her fellow FFA members are very proud of Scholz's accomplishment and made sure she could hear them cheering when her name was called.

Only the top 15 from each division at the state level got to present at the National Convention.

Another SHS student was also in the top 15, junior Matt Brower. He took ninth place overall at the national convention, with his project on infected Listeria-like bacteria.

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Both Scholz and Brower took a science research class with science teacher Carlye Armstrong, where they had to do research on 10 different articles on agriculture related topic of their choosing. They used that research to decide on their topics for their projects, which they presented at the Northeast Regional Science Fair as well as the National FFA Convention.

By the time the two presented their projects at nationals they had spent about a year and a half working on them.

Also attending the National Convention were Sky McEndaffer, a freshman at Northeastern Junior College; Kelsey Bornhoft and Morgan Quint, seniors at SHS; and Kymbre Mitchell, a junior who competed in horse judging.

They came in at 14th place in the competition, one place away from the gold category.

As an individual Bornhoft came in 13th overall, seventh in the placing halter and ninth in the giving reasons portion. She fell into the gold category, while McEndaffer came in at the bronze level as an individual.

Quint took silver individually. He said that judging at nationals was much different than judging at state.

"At the national level there's so much more people there," Quint said.

Callie Jones/Journal-Advocate Emma Scholz, a sophomore at Sterling High School, shows off the project that won her first place in the agriscience fair competition at the National FFA Convention last month. (Callie Jones/Journal-Advocate)

"It was really different," added Mitchell, who placed at the silver level as well.

During the competition, on the first day students had to rank four different horses that came from people around the Indianapolis area and then explain why they ranked them the way they did. On the second day they were given team problems to solve.

"It was a long two days," Bornhoft said.

She said the competition taught them not to doubt their skills. Mitchell said it helped them to grow both as individuals and as a team.

"We did our best and it was overall good," she said. "It was fun being at Nationals and competing at that level."

The third team who went to the National Convention included seniors Miranda Ewbank, Shannon Stewart and Alyssa Bell, who competed in agricultural communications.

As a group they did a presentation on Cooperating Ministry of Logan County and placed in a bronze category. They had to send in a media plan beforehand, which was pre-judged and used to determine what room they would be in -- they ended up in a room with the top three national teams.

Individually, Ewbank competed in web designing and came in at the bronze level. For her competition she had one hour to create a website for a press conference. She also had to take two separate tests, one with multiple choice questions and one to demonstrate editing skills.

Shannon Stewart had an hour to create a press release for the conference. She came in at the silver level.

Bell, who came in at the silver level as an individual, had to create a radio broadcast for the press conference.

The students are hoping to earn another trip to Nationals next year. Most of them plan to compete again at the state Career Development Events competition at Colorado State University and the Colorado State FFA Convention, which will be held in Sterling.

"As seniors this is our last chance for a shining moment," Bornhoft said. "Not many people get the chance to go to Nationals; to say we did is a big honor."

RE-1 Valley School District has announced its policy for determining eligibility of children who may receive free and reduced price meals served under the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program.
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